Pages

Thursday, January 24, 2008

TV Culture Environmentalism

or,

How I learned everything I need to know about Climate Change from Saturday Morning Cartoons.

Hey, remember that Twilight Zone episode where the earth was losing its orbit around the sun (or something) and it was getting hotter and in the end, everybody fried and when the guy woke up he discovered it had all just been a bad dream, but it was just the opposite and the world was moving away from the sun and we were all freezing to death?

The 'climate change" thing reminds me of that, cause it seems like they can't make up their minds which way it's going.

Anyone old enough to remember when we were kids and before environmentalism there was "the ecology" and before "global warming" there was "the coming little ice age". 'Cause see, the industrial pollutants were supposed to be pouring into the atmosphere and making a big sort of smoke cloud thingy that would block out all the sun and all the crops and trees and things would die and we would go extinct...oh, hang on, or was that the dinosaurs?

Anyone else remember the big winter of '78 when we all nodded knowingly and said, "yep, this is it, the start of the Big Freeze, just like that Twilight Zone episode."

And remember when the hole in the ozone layer was going to give us all skin cancer? Wasn't that the point of the closing scene of THX 1138?

And remember when DDT was going to kill all the bugs so the birds that ate them were going to die and we would all get to a "silent spring"?

And remember when the Amazon rainforest was going to be wiped out by slash and burn agriculture and the world's oxygen was going to be depleted and we were all going to be on O2 tanks? Yeah, I think that was in Blade Runner, wasn't it?

I swear that the best movie I've ever seen about climate change was that one where they destroyed New York with a GIANT TIDAL WAVE, man that was GREAT! And then there was this big super-freeze and Bilbo Baggins and the Royal Family got caught in it and the guy froze on the spot like that woolly mammoth they found in Alaska?

1 comment:

Johannes Carolus
said...

I think there is a fundamental problem with 'science' nowadays many people might not be aware of.Whereas in the past, the 'learned' were either exceedingly wealthy people or monks who did not have to worry about toiling for their daily bread, or people like Socrates or Zeno who didn't really mind being poor, modern 'scientists' and 'scholars' get a paycheck from some third party. It should be no surprise then, that whatever 'conclusions' they come up with, have to advance whatever their patron's agenda might happen to be. This is the reason why every new 'study' that comes out simply contradicts everything that was said yesterday--and most people don't bat an eye 'cause we've been lulled into some strange fantasy sleep wherein contradictions don't really bother us the way they would if we were actually awake. I am not saying that all sicentists are intellectually dishonest (though a great many are)but rather realists: if somebody's passion has been to study toadstools since he was a kid, he is going to have to study toadstools 'in realtion to the effect of global warming' if he wants to get payed by somebody, and that is bound to skew his 'science' if only a little.

Total Pageviews

Disclaimer

The thoughts, ideas and outrageous opinions expressed on this blog, unless otherwise stated, are entirely my own fault and are not anyone's fault but mine. My fault, mine own fault, mine own most grievous fault.

This means that they are not the opinions nor the fault of my employers or any of the people who edit any publication for which I write... except this one, of course, which actually is my fault, since I invented it.

If they sound loony, offensive or even brilliant, this is not their fault but mine.